<nettime> biological clocks

[Brandon Keim <brandonkeim@mindspring.com>]

While I'm at it . . . here's one more:

On the corner of the Boston Commons is a sign dating its 
establishment to 1634. The inherent absurdity of this -- the sign 
merely signifies somebody giving a name to that particular patch of 
grass -- make one conscious, for a moment, of the relationship 
between and Time and man that tends to be obscured by the details of 
everyday.

But even on a 400 year scale . . . damn! Assuming, of course, that it 
wasn't replanted by the city, the grass on which college students 
grope and bums urinate has roughly the same genetic material as that 
which grew there almost four centuries ago. Considered as pattern 
perpetuation -- which takes, in other forms, the mechanical 
repetition of clocks -- that's pretty impressive, and it recalled to 
me the 10,000 Year Clock of Danny Hillis and the Long Now Foundation.

Perhaps a mechanical approach to millennial time is a tad Sisyphean, 
or at least redundant; maybe a biological approach would be better 
suited. I envision (as a totally unscientific layman, obviously) 
something like a a gigantic biosphere in which the consequences of 
some cyclical organic processes are visible at precise intervals -- 
for instance, carbon dioxide emissions trigger light-emitting sensors 
(or cause a light-emitting reaction) at levels reached every 
twenty-four hours. Other emissions, accruing more slowly, would 
follow weekly, monthly, and yearly cycles. Each chronological 
gradation would be correspondingly visual; at the 10,000 year mark, 
the entire biosphere would turn blindingly white, or perhaps erupt in 
kaleidoscope of color. . . .

Brandon Keim
www.djinnetic.org/blog

#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net